Frat boy’s smile went Joker wide. “You are Ryder’s girl,” he said, flashing his phone at me. On the screen was a still of me straddling a crazed faced Adriana, my arm high and my hair a tornado of white-blond whispys.

“I don’t care if this seat is taken,” he said, grabbing my purse and throwing it into my lap. “I need to get a picture with the girl who was on the winning side of the most talked about cat fight in all college history.” Wrapping his arm around me, he hung his phone out in front of us, about to take a picture.

When were asshats like this going to figure out they couldn’t do whatever they wanted with a woman? We weren’t beasts they could control. We were women who could rule the world with our eyes closed, but were smart enough to know to stay out of that whole mess. We were women‌—‌hear us roar.

And I did just that as I snatched his phone out of his hand, shot up in my seat, and hurled it onto the field.

Jude had just called the hike as my own projectile spiraled onto the sidelines. Taking another look back when his eyes should have been nowhere but on the field, I saw him freeze when he saw what was taking place between me and super frat.

Time stood still then as Jude watched me and I watched him. Both of our faces lined with worry for the other. However, Jude’s worry was misplaced. Frat boy had selected a perfectly uncreative curse word to holler at me before marching away‌—‌back to his middle management hopefuls. But me, I had the right to an absolute gut dropping worry because, breaking through Jude’s defensive line, one of the visiting team’s lineman barreled right for the frozen in place quarterback.

I was already screaming his name when the line man drilled into Jude. Even after the initial impact, Jude’s eyes didn’t leave mine, but when his body crashed to the ground, bouncing and skidding a good ten yards, his eyes were long past the point of recognition as they fluttered closed.

“JUDE!” The scream was primal, coming out of some part of me I didn’t know existed. Popping out of my seat, I was running down the stairs before I knew I was running. My eyes were locked on him, decorating the astroturf in ways that a body shouldn’t contort.

I wasn’t thinking anything right then‌—‌I was all instinct. I didn’t doubt that if anyone stood in my path, I would have done anything to get by them. But no one did, and when I reached the concrete barrier separating the field from the stands, I swung my legs over it.

Twisting so my stomach curled the wall, I dropped down to the field. The breath popped out of my lungs from the impact. I’d underestimated the drop, but it didn’t slow me down.

Everyone was so focused on Jude and the trainers sprinting out there towards him, no one paid the crazed girl running across the field any attention. Pushing and shoving by the players forming a circle around him, I skidded to my knees beside him.

“Jude?” I said, trying to catch my breath.

The trio of trainers glanced up at me, eyes wide before narrowing. “You need to get the hell out of here, ma’am,” one of them said as another removed Jude’s helmet.

I sobbed one terrible note when I grabbed his hand and, for the first time ever, it fell limp into mine.

“I’m not leaving,” I replied, biting the side of my cheek.

“If you don’t leave of your own accord, we’ll have to have someone escort you,” the third said, holding a light above Jude’s eyes as he pried them open.

Another sob escaped before I caught it. Those gray eyes of his were flat, dead.

“I’m not leaving,” I said, folding Jude’s hand into both of mine, trying to infuse some warmth and life into it. “And I pity the person who tries to take me away from him.” My eyes flashed into each of the trainers’.

“Fine,” the one putting a brace around Jude’s neck replied. “But you get in our way and I’ll happily use the tranquilizer I keep in my case for emergency cases on you. You understand?”

“Okay,” I said, wanting to run my hands over every part of Jude until they uncovered what was the matter with him. Until they identified what needed to be fixed. It was a powerless feeling, not knowing what needed to be taken care of. How to go about fixing the worst kind of situation.

One of the trainer’s plucked his phone from his pocket. “We’ve got to call this one in, guys,” he said. The others nodded their agreement.

Biting the other side of my cheek, I stared at the spot on Jude’s neck where the faintest movement could be detected. I started holding my breath, waiting in torture for his pulse to lift that patch of skin again.

As long as he had a pulse, he was alive.

A couple more trainers ran onto the field, carrying a stretcher. The players moved away, hanging their heads as they wandered back to the sidelines. Nestling the stretcher beside Jude, the five trainers positioned themselves around him, sliding their hands into place.

I didn’t let go of his hand as they hoisted him onto the stretcher and I didn’t let go of his hand as they made their way off the field.

I wasn’t sure if the stadium had gone silent, or I was just incapable of hearing anything in my shock, but I didn’t hear a sound as we moved Jude off the field.

Only when we were through one of the team tunnels did I hear the blare of an ambulance siren. The paramedics were just swinging the back doors open when we emerged outside. One of the trainers told them what had happened and what injuries they thought he may have sustained. When the words concussion, coma, and paralyzed were voiced, I had to tune it out. I had to pretend reality wasn’t so real right now.

Transferring him into the ambulance, I followed behind the paramedic, taking a seat before I could be kicked out.

“Who are you?” he hollered over at me as the trainers stepped away as the doors slammed shut.

“I’m the only family he’s got,” I whispered, trying not to let the crowd watching us drive away, like we were a hearse on its way to a funeral, cripple me.

Rushing through an emergency room, while a person I loved was shuttled to the front of the line due to his injuries, was an episode I never wanted to replay in my life. Hurrying him into a room, I was ordered to stay outside in the waiting room.

Two security guards had to be called when I told a certain sour faced nurse to go, eh-hmm, herself. They took one look at me, crazed and worried out of my mind, and let me off with a warning.

Pacing the waiting room, I had to fight the urge at least a hundred times to shove past the security guard who’d clearly been instructed to keep an eye on me. My phone rang every minute as all of Jude’s acquaintances and friends wanted to know how he was doing.

I turned it off after ten minutes. What could I tell them? He’d been sequestered to an emergency room while more doctors rushed into his room than onto a golf course on a sunny Saturday morning? To give any of them an answer to how Jude was doing, I’d either have to lie or admit things that I was sure I couldn’t admit.

So I paced. I chewed my nails down to nothing. I ached in every place I didn’t realize could ache. But I wouldn’t let myself think, or contemplate, or consider any one of the many things that would break me if I let them in right now. I was barely hanging on as it was, behaving like nothing better than a caged animal; if I let in any one of the emotions piling up , no vial of tranquilizer could subdue me.

It could have been fifteen minutes, it could have been fifteen hours, but when the serious faced doctor ambled into the waiting room, his eyes shifting my way, it took a lifetime for him to cross the room towards me.

“I understand you’re somehow related to Mr. Ryder,” he said, crossing his arms. He wasn’t covered in blood, so I assured myself that was a good sign.

“Yes,” I said, my voice hoarse. I was related to him in every way a person could be without the bond of blood relation.